“I have nothing to return.”
“I think you’ll find it wiser and more profitable in the end to return it,” went on Loveman’s pleasant voice.
“I have nothing to return,” repeated the other, drawing on his gloves.
The two men gazed at each other steadily. Clifford could see that beneath Hilton’s smiling politeness there was defiance, that beneath Loveman’s soft manner there was menace. He was puzzled by this hostility, for he had figured that the pair, with Bradley, were working together. But he instantly perceived why this hostility should be masked; the two spoke thus indirectly because neither, or at least not Loveman, wished Mary to understand what lay between them. And Mary did not understand; the bewildered look she gave the pair told Clifford that.
Hilton ended the brief tableau by picking up his hat and stick, which he had carried into the room with him. “Good-afternoon, Mrs. Grayson; this has been a most pleasant occasion. So-long, Loveman.”
He was turning away when Clifford sprang through the doorway and upon him. Clifford seized his right wrist and swung the arm upward and backward with a vicious twist—an old police trick—and thrust a hand through the flaring front of the exquisitely tailored coat and possessed himself of the bank-notes. Hilton’s stick and hat went flying; he let out a cry of surprise and pain; but before he knew what had happened to him there had snapped about his wrists a pair of handcuffs.
Clifford jerked him forward, so that their faces were within a foot of each other. “Well, Hilton, this time I’ve got you with the goods on!” he snapped. “This will be the last woman you’ll squeeze money out of for about five years!”
“See here, I’ve done nothing,” gasped the breathless Hilton. “That’s my own money—I had it when I came here.”
Clifford turned to Mary. “I warned you what he was—one of the cleverest of that new trade whose specialty is squeezing big money out of women!”
“He’s done nothing,” Mary affirmed, looking directly at Clifford. “You—how did you get in here? I heard no ring.”